The South Indian Film Artist Association aka the Nadigar Sangam polls took place on June 23 but over a month later, the results are still unknown. Earlier last month, the Madras High Court denied permission for counting the Nadigar Sangam election votes. The recent High Court order that came on Thursday has further stayed the announcement of election results even if the vote counting were to be permitted later.
Justice R Subramanian was hearing a civil suit filed by K Benjamin, a Salem-based supporting artist and a member of the Sangam, on Thursday when he passed this order. Calling for a response from Vishal and concerned members, the next hearing of the case has been scheduled for August 8.
Benjamin had first moved the court in July to render the June 23 elections invalid since he was denied an opportunity to cast his vote. He had stated that the form to cast postal vote had reached him just one day before the elections. When Justice PD Audikesavalu heard the case earlier this month, he discharged it and recommended the petitioner to file a civil suit in a lower court. Following this, Benjamin filed a civil suit that came up for hearing on Thursday.
The first order was passed when the court was hearing Vishal’s petition in which he sought an injunction against the Registrar’s decision to indefinitely postpone the elections. While the court in a special hearing on June 21 gave the go-ahead for the elections to be held as proposed on June 23, it had said that the votes cannot be counted till it investigated the matter further. The ballot boxes are still being safely guarded.
The Registrar of Societies had called off the Nadigar Sangam polls just days before it was set to happen, based on a complaint from 61 members that they were removed from the voters' list by the contesting Pandavar Ani to skew the election results in their favour. The Registrar further observed that any election-related decision taken by Nassar and his team of office-bearers cannot hold since their term already ended in April this year.
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